- - - — 5 years ago — - - -
Anisa woke up excited to spend more time with Kiani, a wonderful girl her own young age. Daughter of Bahram, a dignitary in her father's court, her personality as dark as her looks. Though even in those inky black eyes, pools of utter darkness, Anisa thought she could see some of the light she'd gotten to know in the other girl, a kind of reflective glimmer somewhere deep inside.
Not that she'd ever say any of this out loud. Anisa had gotten into enough trouble with her own father over the years. Don't listen to this, don't watch that, stop jumping around before you hurt yourself. No princess should act as she did, and Anisa had gotten used to the idea that she'd have to temper what she did even in her own home.
It wasn't fair. Sumayya didn't get the same treatment, and she was older so she should've known better. But Anisa was also beginning to understand that their father had given up on Sumayya to some degree, and that was sad enough to make her pity rather than resent her sister.
Anisa thought about all this as she was washed and dressed, her thoughts eventually coming back to Kiani, who she knew must by now have been waiting in the parlor with everyone else. The girl had often spoken of how new this world was to her, with all its servants and ivory walls and what she called "ridiculous" levels of vibrant yellow ornamentation that slathered every inch of the palace. Kiani had taken one look at Anisa's bathtub and called it a swimming pool, one jump on her bed and called it a trampoline, one sniff of the garden and called it stuffed full of perfume. She never made it clear she was joking, and it was hard to tell with how subdued the girl was, but it always made Anisa laugh. It made it better to know she probably shouldn't.
Once she was ready, Anisa let her servants lead her into the parlor, and there she found the others already waiting. Her fifty-seven cousins and twenty-three aunts sat around the room, a flock of red and yellow silk, each turn of their heads and flick of their wrists paired with the ring of golden, jewel-encrusted chains. Their voices tittered high, laughter sharp, some already playing games and others laid out by the television, their shared fragrance sweet, subtle, and opulent.
Then there was Kiani sitting alone and dressed in a distinct green hue, hair a well-kept though rather bland black curtain around her shoulders, eyes staring blankly into empty space. She seemed to just put up with it all, not even bothering to hide her boredom with the tight, cordial smile she'd surely been taught as much as the rest of them had.
Anisa walked over to her, smiling already. "You look out of place as always, my friend."
Kiani blinked and turned, face still nonreactive. "It feels useless to just sit here and wait."
She had an incredibly soft voice, almost at a constant whisper, and while her Arabic was good it was also heavily accented. Her father Bahram must've been quite the man to gain so much favor after so much time abroad.
"The men must do their work," Anisa said dutifully. "But this is the last day.
"The last day..." Kiani closed her eyes, settling comfortably into her seat. "True. Things should be ready anytime now."
"Ah, yes, I believe breakfast is almost ready."
"That's not what I meant."
Anisa tilted her head at that, and when Kiani looked at her now she looked for that same old glimmer, the brightness that hid in those black orbs. But looking at her friend, the girl felt herself flinch, an entirely instinctive twitch, because Kiani was not bright, and her look had nothing of the dry humor she'd gotten so used to the past two weeks.
No, Kiani's eyes were now a stony, unforgiving void. Black holes that had sucked out all things kind and good.
"You've been a nice girl," Mouse said. Slowly, she readjusted herself on her chair, and Anisa thought she could see something like a mirror in the folds of her dress. "I appreciated your company. It was... fun, I guess. I'll make sure you're the first, so you don't have to see what happens to everybody else."
It wasn't a mirror. Anisa realized it with a sudden, violent shiver. Mouse carried a knife, and she was getting ready to use it.
So Anisa did the obvious thing: she stepped back and screamed. Except when she did, nothing came out. She could feel herself shouting, her voice and her breath coming out through her open lips, but she could hear no sound, and judging by the lack of reaction from the other girls neither could they.
Mouse stood, and Anisa took another step back, still screaming and hearing silence. Now those around them started to notice something was wrong, looked over with confusion and the beginnings of worry, but too late. The knife came up with a flash of shining steel, and even as the screams grew in number and effort no one outside the room heard a thing.
Her Sound Dial was most terrifying in these moments. She'd learned to make a sonic explosion out of the softest whisper, but it was in muting even the loudest screams that her Trick truly shone.
By the time Mouse was done, her green dress had turned a deep, wet red. The floors and walls, once an almost snowy white marble, were now covered in similar splashes of crimson. All the chairs were ruined by it, all the tables, all the ornate etchings and statuettes, as if the whole place had been sprayed with gallons of wine.
Then there were the bodies. Walking in, one might have thought it some sort of mass slumber party, at least at first. But then they would have surely noticed the discomforting position all the girls now lay in, backs and necks bent awkwardly. They would have noticed the open and unblinking eyes, the expressions of shock and horror. And, of course, they would have noticed that these bodies were redder than anything which surrounded them.
They'd died as fast and painlessly as Mouse could manage, though things had gotten a bit dicey once she'd gone through around twenty and some of the others had gotten the courage to try and fight back. The one she'd known to be Sumayya had led the charge then. Anisa had called her sister irresponsible and something of a disappointment, but she'd done well in the end, for all the good it did.
The door opened, and turning to it Mouse saw Owl slip casually in. The other girl wore simpler and darker clothes, so it was harder to tell, but she'd been covered in her own share of blood.
"Doesn't look like you need any help," Owl said, glancing around. Her eyes lingered on the servants slumped in a pile close to the exit. "These ones too?"
Mouse shrugged, cleaning her knife against one of the few clean cushioned chairs left. "They would've talked, and I didn't know if you'd be done yet."
"There weren't as many boys."
"And Fox?" It was somewhat liberating to be able to call her that after two weeks of Bahram.
"You know her. I'm sure she finished off the men before we even started. Probably just messing around by now." Owl sighed, opening the door for them. "Let's go find her before she gets us in trouble. Time to go back home."
Mouse nodded and made to follow, though one of the bodies caught her eye just before she stepped out into the hall. Anisa lay there, surrounded by her cousins, looking just as shocked and horrified as the rest. But there was something else in her face, now paralyzed in death. A muted hurt, like she'd been about to cry before the knife had slid into her heart.
She'd thought them friends, Mouse knew. Maybe they had been. But had Anisa lived, they'd surely not be friends anymore. Shocked and horrified; whether dead or alive, that expression of hers would always have been the same.
- - - — MKII — - - -
"Tonight we celebrate the return of your three beloved sisters."
Mouse sought Owl's eyes, meeting them from over the other girl's cup as she drank down her water. They held each other's gaze from across the table, communicating a vague combination of embarrassment and pride.
"They've returned to us safe and sound, which is all that truly matters. But thankfully, that return also comes after a job well done."
That job being the simultaneous elimination of an entire branch of a royal family. Mouse remembered all the soundlessly screaming victims, their voices stolen by her Trick and their lives stolen by her blade. It made her look from Owl and toward the other girls sitting around them, a good twenty up and down the long, dreary table, all forced to wait until they were allowed to reach for the food steaming and ready before them.
Not that anyone would complain about the wait. Speaking out of turn would only lead to punishment, so everyone just sat stiffly and emotionlessly, their faces just as somber and unexpressive as the gray, blank walls that surrounded them. Lit only by the candles spread evenly across the room, the dinner seemed less like one shared by a family and more one shared by some sort of cult, an observation Mouse would make sure never to share and had only recently begun to even think.
"So, everyone, a round of applause for Owl, Mouse, and Fox. May you all continue to perform so exceptionally."
They clapped politely, and Mouse could see Fox smiling and bowing with all her usual flair, red hair stark in the shade, just about the only splash of color in view. She could also see that the only one who didn't applaud was Hound, who sat by himself at the corner of the room, watching the rest of them without bothering to hide it, eyes passing slowly from one girl to the next until they eventually landed on her.
Mouse looked away but still felt his stare on her, an imaginary target drawing itself over her body. His expressionlessness didn't come from boredom or obedience or even resignation like the rest of them—rather, it vibrated in wait, like a hunter on the prowl looking for the smallest opening.
In complete contrast, his applause the most insistent of all, was the man at the head of their table. Broad-shouldered, chiseled, and his bald head riddled with scars that stretched down from his cranium into his collar, his mere presence carried a silent weight far more intimidating than any Hound could've conjured. He smiled at them, but there was no life in it, and his eyes shone in an endless receptive calculation, as if the world were one big board game and they were merely pieces.
Father raised his glass, looking intently at them. "Now, please, dig in."
They did, and the food tasted as bland as the room they sat in and the drab gray uniforms they all wore, but no one dared leave anything on their plate. No one spoke either, eating quietly, keeping what sound did arise from the clinking of their cutlery to a minimum. Tension, as always, hung heavy in the air, and though no one looked at him they all knew Hound sat there, watching, waiting, just as he did every hour of every day.
That was life in the House of Endless Slumber. Mouse had lived it for as long as she could remember and so did not know much better, but again and again throughout the dinner she thought of that foolishly kind Anisa and the betrayal in the girl's eyes. The broken expectation of something else, something more.
Once they were done, all placed their utensils neatly back on their empty plates, slid their chairs back, and waited for Father to order them back to their rooms. He did it the same way he always did: a simple wave of his hand and a tap on his cheek. The girls stood and began to filter out, each one making sure to stop beside him and reach up to peck him on his scarred face, two separate rows taking turns one after another.
Mouse's turn came just after Owl's, and she felt the same coldness against her lips that always came with kissing Father, for the man's skin seemed more like that of a corpse. But before she could pass through the doors, Father whistled, raising another hand, eyes glancing sharply in her direction.
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"Mouse, my star. Owl and Fox too. A word, if you don't mind."
They stayed, standing in a line and waiting as the other girls trickled out. Soon they were the only children left aside from Hound, who never let himself lose sight of Father unless he was away on assignment. Now the boy's attention rested solely on them, and Mouse could see that even Fox let it affect her nerves, the redhead terse beside her sisters despite being a full head taller and more than half a decade older.
Father didn't make it any easier, staring at them in silence for a few moments, meeting their eyes several times and always waiting for them to look away first. Eventually he gave them his usual smile, practiced and hollow. "I hope you know how proud I am of you three."
Mouse felt again that mixture of embarrassment and strange pride, his words crawling through her skin and shooting light through her all at once. She could never tell if his compliments were genuine, but a part of her craved them all the same. That part, she knew, was not quite herself. She didn't want it to be herself. But the fear was always there, that maybe it would become the only thing she was just as it had for so many of the other girls.
"It's not usual to have teams of three," Father went on. He lay back on his chair, playing at relaxation, but nothing about his face reflected the comfort of his body. "But you seem to work well together. I can tell you've attained a sort of camaraderie." They tensed at that. "No need to look upset, now. I have no qualms with sisters who love one another, as long as you remember your training and discard such useless feelings when you go out. And perhaps some familiarity helps you perform better. It almost makes me glad that Rabbit chose to leave us when she did."
Scratching metal pierced the air. Mouse glanced over at Hound, who'd begun to sharpen his bowie knife across the room, eyes boring into them from under an eternally furrowed brow. It was no secret what that knife was used for. Rabbit had found out very well some weeks back.
Mouse could remember the girl, a tiny thing not much taller than her even though she was much older. They'd lived in the same house for years and hadn't shared more than the odd word or two, but Fox talked about her sometimes, describing the way she had been back when they shared the same room. Anxious, secretive, but also tender.
Tender. A wonder of a word. Mouse supposed she knew what it meant, but it was hard to tell with no real point of reference.
"I have another task for you three," Father said. "An important one. You'll get the details tomorrow morning, and I expect you to leave by noon."
So soon, after being gone so long? Mouse didn't ask out loud, but the question must've appeared on her face because Father's granite eyes narrowed in on hers, and his hollow smile filled with a modicum of pretended pity.
"I know you must be tired," he said, "but our client says this is rather time sensitive, and you three are my best infiltrators."
"We understand," Owl said.
Mouse glanced over from the corner of her eye to see if she really did, but Owl had always had the best poker face out of all of them. And it didn't really matter whether or not they understood. It wasn't their role to understand. Father took care of that for them. He always would.
"You can count on us," she said.
Fox was the only one left. When Father looked at her next, all the older girl could do was sigh and give a limp salute. "Aye-aye, cap'n."
Anyone else would've been reproached for speaking like that, but Fox had always been given plenty of leeway, at least compared to them. Her skills required good acting, and good acting required a broad range of expression. Father knew that and allowed it, because if there was anything he liked more than complete obedience it was a tool that did its work as intended.
"Good," Father said. "You have a long trip ahead of you, so go get a good night's sleep." He gave them his smile again, and this time he almost seemed to mean it. "Sweet dreams."
- - - — MKII — - - -
That night, Mouse lay awake in the dark, waiting. Each groan and creak of the floor outside made her fingers twitch under the covers, and she knew Owl was much the same in her own bed across their room. It was a nervous excitement, the same one Mouse used to have when she first started learning to hide and mute her steps. The thrill of doing something you're not meant to and knowing you'll probably get away with it.
Eventually, she saw the vague shape of their door opening, and immediately her Spirit reached out, silencing its hinges as a dark figure slipped inside. In a second she was up, and so was Owl, and both of them squinted to see Fox on her tip-toes grinning back at them.
"I'll need a light," she said, speaking freely and loudly because she knew no sound could now pass through the walls unless Mouse willed it.
Soon their candle was lit, and Owl sunk into her bed before appearing right beside Mouse, rising from the shadows onto her bed, and Fox threw herself on top of them, half hugging and half wrestling, and Mouse knew that they should've all now been giggling because that would've been normal, but she couldn't and neither could Owl and even Fox seemed not to know quite how, yet in that moment it didn't matter because she felt the warmth of their touch and her own emanating joy.
Yes, joy. She'd been surprised to feel it at first. Now it was expected, though no less special. A promise of these nights spent together, where it for once felt like they really were a family.
"I wish I could've grabbed more," Fox said, showing them her prize. "But there's only so much you can carry out of a scene like that."
A thin yellow book, its illustration simple and childish, and Mouse could read its Arabic easily. The Little Prince.
"It looks like it's for babies," Owl muttered.
Fox grabbed the girl's face, pinching her cheeks. "You still are a baby," she said, smiling deviously as Owl smacked her hands away. "I think you'll like this one. Some of it looked pretty funny."
"We don't have a lot of time," Mouse said. It was already late enough.
"Okay, okay. Here, get close. It's got pictures."
They sat snuggled close together, Fox reading out loud, Mouse and Owl following along at either side of her by the light of the candle. The older girl made sure to give proper inflection, murmuring softly at the quiet parts and booming haughtily at the dramatic ones, and her voice tilted up once she found that the book featured a talking fox character, clearly pleased.
Mouse listened intently, knowing they'd have to get rid of the book once they were done with it else it be found, but eventually she grew drowsy. Fox's voice carried on, passing in and out, flickering like the candle nearby.
If you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world....
It wasn't a funny story at all, but Mouse still liked it. With a yawn she leaned heavily on Fox's shoulder, comfortable and feeling already like she was dreaming. Words kept passing through the air, sounding more like her own thoughts.
People have forgotten this truth... But you mustn't forget it. You become responsible forever for what you've tamed.
A nudge. Mouse blinked awake, and when Fox now spoke to her it was in a whisper.
"Are we done for tonight?" she asked. "We need your Trick, Mouse, but if you're passing out on us..."
"I'm awake," Mouse said, straightening up and rubbing her eyes, Spirit surging once more.
"Uh-huh." Fox closed the book. "Either way, it's getting late. Father won't like it if we're all tired in the morning."
"Wait, just... stay a while."
Fox seemed to want to say something, but when Mouse cuddled into her side she dropped it. Instead she glanced at Owl, who seemed just as sleepy as her roommate, and threw an arm around the girl to pull her close too.
"Don't do that," Owl whined. Still, she didn't pull away, and they lay there wordlessly, enjoying the comfort of the covers and each other, listening to the dead air and the candle's soft hiss.
Mouse thought again of Anisa. She couldn't help it. The girl had hugged her too, once or twice, but Mouse had never really let herself fall into the embrace as she did now. Something about it had felt too cruel. But if she really had been Kiani in earnest, just the normal daughter of a foreign dignitary, would she have been able to hug Anisa back? Or would she have still been as she now was, someone out of place?
"Have you ever thought of..." Mouse paused, only now remembering exactly where she was. But, in this muted room with Owl and Fox, the words somehow felt safe to say regardless, so she swallowed to quench her throat and came out with it. "Running away? Us three, like Rabbit did?"
Mouse felt the bed shift. Owl leaned over Fox, frowning at her. "You're not being serious. Rabbit lasted two days."
Maybe she had been, but Owl was right. She remembered the sound of Hound's knife, ringing steel stabbing through her mind. "No. I'm just imagining, I guess. What do you think it'd be like, out there? Away from this..."
She didn't finish, mostly because she wasn't sure exactly what they'd be away from. The House? Hound? Father? The other girls? Somehow neither option seemed adequate, because it went beyond those things. It was the stillness of their dinners, the sterile lifelessness of their halls, the utter lack of electricity or books.
Luckily, Fox was willing to entertain the thought. "I think we'd do fine. We're resourceful, and we know a lot." She paused, humming. "But if we wanna fit in, we'd need new names. Fox, Mouse, and Owl aren't exactly ideal."
"And what would be ideal?" Owl asked.
"I'd wanna be called something like... Scarlet. Scarlet Valentine."
Owl's voice sounded as deadpan as her face. "That's just a Nancy Drew ripoff."
"No, it's interesting and sexy, just like me."
"You'd get found out right away."
"Okay, so what's your new name, then?"
"Anna, or Lisa, or Penny. Something, you know, normal."
"More like something boring." Fox blocked the pillow Owl tried slapping her with, holding it up as a shield while the girl started wailing on it. "What about you, Mouse? New name?"
"I don't know." Mouse closed her eyes, trying hard not to let herself fall asleep. "Maybe... Catherine."
"Oh, I get it. Mouse turns into Cat, right? But you know..." Fox leaned her head against the other girl's. "You're still a baby too. Less like a Cat and more like a Kitty."
"Okay, we get it," Owl said. "You're always the adult in the room, even though you act the most like a child. Get out of here already."
Fox drew up and ruffled Owl's hair. "I'll let you kick me out just this once, but only because Kitty here needs a little catnap." With a lunge she flew off the bed and, twirling around, held up the book she'd been reading to them. "And no worries, we'll finish this one when we get back. I know you're waiting on bated breath."
"Just hide it somewhere good," Owl grumbled, straightening out her frizz.
"Goodnight, babies."
"Bye already."
Fox left them alone in their room once more, the door closing behind her with a soundless click. Sighing, Owl crawled off Mouse's bed and went to her own, stopping to blow out the candle on the way.
"Father lets her get away with too much," she said. "It's not fair at all."
Mouse lay down in earnest, looking sideways across the room over at Owl. "I'm glad someone gets to be like that..."
Feeling her gaze, Owl turned in her pillow and looked back, both of them staring at each other across the dark. Mouse couldn't quite see the other girl, not clearly at least, but it still felt intimate and secret, and though her Trick still worked fine she found herself whispering.
"Do you think Fox is right?" she asked. "Would we be fine, living away?"
"Probably," Owl said, whispering back. "We could make money easy, and that's the thing everyone always worries about out there."
"I don't mean about that. I mean... Can we, like..." Mouse felt a sudden wet weight behind her eyes that just barely remained locked in there, because Anisa's face flashed like a shadowy phantom once again and she couldn't stop remembering it as she'd last seen it, shocked and horrified. But worse, she couldn't stop remembering it as it had been when the girl had been happy and thought herself safe, thought herself in the presence of someone she could trust. "Can people like us ever be fine? Would we feel like... like we weren't sneaking around somewhere we didn't belong?"
Owl didn't speak for a long time, and for a moment Mouse thought she must've been angry or at least confused, because these questions didn't really make any sense. But eventually her voice slipped through the silence, slow and soft and something like what Mouse imagined must be tender.
"I don't think we can change. This is what we are now. Monsters." Owl paused. "But... if we were together, I think I'd be fine. We're not good, but even if you were the only one in the whole world who liked me at all... I'd be fine with that. What about you?"
That feeling came back to Mouse. Joy.
"Yeah," she said. "I'd be fine with that too."
"And Fox, I guess. But don't tell her I said that."
The joy pulled at her lips before Mouse's training could stop it. She smiled in the dark, and that night she dreamed of open air, and grass under a bright sun, and flight.